Budget woes force Kansas to delay road work, cut colleges

(AP) — Kansas plans to delay major highway projects and cut additional spending at state universities, a top aide to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback announced Wednesday, after a new pessimistic fiscal forecast blew a hole in the state's budget.

Budget Director Shawn Sullivan also outlined a proposal from the GOP governor to sell off the rights to some the state's funds from a national legal settlement with tobacco companies in the 1990s.

Brownback's administration unveiled the proposals after a new, more pessimistic fiscal forecast for state government slashed projected revenues through June 2017 by $348 million and left the state with projected shortfalls in its current and next budgets totaling more than $290 million.

Republicans in some other states have watched the Kansas tax-cutting experiment closely since it slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback's urging as a way to generate business investment and economic growth.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said Brownback remains in "denial" about his tax policies' failure to stimulate economic growth while causing the state's budget problems.

The new fiscal forecast drafted jointly by administration officials, legislative researchers and state university economists revised one made in November.